


A Tale of Two Brothers

by alexa_davenport



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 03:37:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexa_davenport/pseuds/alexa_davenport
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Dean and Sam, Sam and Dean. In the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong things. He wished he could put them where he felt that they should be, a fish out of water deserves to be returned to the sea. '</p><p>A writer begins spinning a narrative about two brothers who live across the street from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale of Two Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this tumblr post: http://puglestrudel.tumblr.com/post/37928111492/punch-the-face-of-god-deaninpanties-novakian - NOT MY POST

He'd been woken on a Tuesday morning by an angry man banging on his front door.  
This wasn't how most of his Tuesdays started. Tuesday was a day when he arose late, when he drank coffee and wrote and looked out of the window. But he hadn't been writing recently. He'd been staring at a screen and arranging pencils into perfect lines. 'Writer's block' was how his brother referred to it. He himself preferred to call it 'illogical behavior.'  
This was an odd Tuesday, because people didn't visit him often. He had become somewhat of a recluse, since he'd moved into this neighborhood. He stuck out uncomfortably here, he didn't wear pastel colors or know how to use a barbecue. His neighbors most likely discussed his mental state over coffee and pastries, although he didn't mind - his mental state interested him too. So a knock on the door was a rare occurrence, and he was cautious.  
He walked down the stairs - calm on the exterior but half asleep inside - and pulled a dirty old coat from a hook beside the door, shrugging it over his pajamas. His brother had bought them for him as a Christmas present. Naturally, the trousers glowed vibrantly orange. He opened the door just a crack and shoved his hands into the pockets of the coat, hoping that he wasn't going to be assaulted by a suburban neighbor for not buying anything at her garage sale. He stared at his socks. They were brown.  
'Dude, is your car alright?' said a voice, almost mocking in its tone.  
He looked up. A man stood in front of him, a man who stuck out perhaps even more than he himself did, clad in leather and flannel and the smell of engine oil. The man wasn't looking at him, he was looking at the car in his driveway, eyebrow raised. It wasn't a very nice car, admittedly.  
'I'm sure it's fine.'  
The other man looked at him and grinned, gesturing to the way that the bumper almost looked as if it were about to fall off. He didn't drive much.  
'She's pretty beat up. I could fix her up, if you want. My brother's gettin' pretty sick of me complaining about that bumper...,' the man trailed off, and the writer listened to the way he spoke gruffly and shyly, embarrassed about offering help, proud when he mentioned his brother. As if he were a silent vigilante. The man of the first sentence different to the man of the second.  
'I couldn't possibly ask you to do that,' the writer replied, pulling the coat closer around him, suddenly very aware that he was essentially answering the door in his sleepwear. He wasn't personally embarrassed by it, but it felt far too...intimate. He didn't wish to share his life with anyone, people became uncomfortable around him.  
'You didn't ask. I'm Dean.'  
And his Tuesday became the most bizarre for years, with a man called Dean blasting classic rock in his neat little driveway, singing along tunelessly and annoying all the neighbors.  
___  
Once the car had been repaired and Dean had given up trying to educate him on the wonders of Led Zeppelin, he began to talk about his brother, Sammy. The writer barely spoke, he simply listened to the way that Dean laughed over his brother's determination and 'crazy hobbies.'  
He knew how it felt to have emotions so tightly wrapped around your words that you dare not say them, for fear that someone may come to know you too well.  
Dean had been his neighbor for two months, and he had never even seen his face. Dean claimed that he had always assumed that the house was haunted by the ghost of some recluse, rolling his eyes and grinning when he saw the look of utter confusion on the other man's face. Dean Winchester was fascinating, and he didn't know what a man like Dean was doing in a town like this one. Dean, Dean stuck out like a broken finger among a sea of sore thumbs. He should have been on the road, blasting this music from his own car, with this little brother that he loved so much. He should not be living on a street named after an American president, turning down invitations to festive lunches, watching office workers wash their cars and water their begonias.  
___  
The next day, he was woken by a softer tapping on his door. He thought perhaps it was Dean again, less insistent this time. Dean was not angry yesterday, he told himself. You merely assumed that he was. He opened the door a little wider.  
'Hi, sorry to bother you. I'm Sam Winchester?'  
And this boy was everything that his brother said he was, intelligent and polite, asking to borrow a computer to research information about Stanford. He would normally find a way to bluntly refuse, but Sam was desperate, talking about how Dean had ceased to complain about the monstrosity in his driveway. He opened his laptop and made Sam a coffee.  
Sam talked for three hours. He conversed differently to his brother, he never stopped and asked questions and apologized and smiled and typed away until the writer was as involved in his quest for Stanford as Sam himself was. Sam would make an excellent lawyer. The writer would tentatively ask about Dean, remembering the comfortable silence and the creaking machinery of the day before. Sam spoke of a man with ridiculous little habits and snarky comebacks, brave declarations and concealed emotion. His words were picked apart like tangled strings.  
Sam trusted him without question, simply trusted that he was a good person. Dean had admitted that he'd almost assumed he was a 'creepy dude in a coat' but the awkward puzzle pieces disjointedly fitted together, and the conversation had flowed brokenly and happily. Dean and Sam, Sam and Dean. In the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong things. He wished he could put them where he felt that they should be, a fish out of water deserves to be returned to the sea.  
And then he realized. He could.  
\----  
Supernatural, a tale of two brothers. He hadn't written in months, but now the words flowed and blossomed across the screen, building and building into adventures he hadn't even known he'd imagined until they were scrawled in pixels. He kept the names, this was merely a small distraction, something to ensure that writing became a permanent commitment once more. He barely even knew these new neighbors of his and he reassured himself that the characters were only loosely based upon the people, as he added detail to a scene where Dean blares music on his way to a house, haunted by the ghost of some recluse. Ghosts became a huge part of the stories, his hobby. Demons and werewolves and vampires - creatures he had previously considered to be frivolous imaginings leapt to life upon the page, and for the first time in a long time, he felt a sense of satisfaction when he read his work.  
Sam would visit him often to borrow books and keep him updated on his Stanford progress, excitedly detailing his plans for when college finished. The writer told Sam about a bookshop where he could buy rare tomes on religious symbolism, and Sam was so grateful that he would drop by every day just to thank him - always asking if there was anything he could do in return. Sam was concerned when he caught the flu, and brought him a slice of Dean's pie to cheer him up. Sickly as he was, he heard Dean's cries of outrage from across the street.  
Dean would awkwardly perch on his porch, laughing when he saw him in his pajamas from the window. Beers magically appeared in the fridge and his radio was permanently tuned on the station which played the most classic rock. Dean took it upon himself to teach him about films, and the writer spent a happy evening watching terrorists attack high rise buildings and learning how to kick an attacker 'exactly like Bruce fucking Lee.' He started wearing the coat more often, and watched Dean as he walked back to his own house, a figure in the darkness, he didn't realize how late it had become, or how lonely he'd been.  
He was too close to these people, his characters. He wrote about them for hours every day, and spent the rest of his time with the humans themselves, never discussing the bravery they exhibited - the bravery he was certain they would exhibit - in his stories. But the writer always preferred reality. Because although he felt that Sam and Dean sat uncomfortably in this universe, they sat with him, and their fictional selves never would.  
Until on a whim, they did.  
_____  
He had written tens of stories about Sam and Dean. They faced hardship, but every character must, in order to have a well developed story. However, he had written himself into a corner. The writer knew that in order to escape, he had to introduce a new character with the power to dissolve the situation. He had created many original characters throughout his narrative, but here he was unable to. Days passed and he could only envisage himself, repaying Dean for the friendship he had shown him, however inadequate he selfishly found it.  
So the writer wrote himself into the story.  
He hated himself for it, the most egotistical move on the literature chessboard, he was a major character. When Sam and Dean needed help, there he was. When he needed help, they came to his aid. They were a team, in fiction as in reality.  
His stomach dropped out as he realized that he was too invested into their lives, and he tried to ignore the two brothers, in both forms. To turn off his computer, to turn off his lights. If he ignored them, they came to find him. If he was cold and distant, they made him laugh. He gave up, too readily.  
The writer didn't understand why he needed this alternate universe, but continued to feel as if perhaps even he belonged there more than he did here. His character cast lingering glances at Dean. Wistful. Ever distant.  
______  
It was November, and it was a Tuesday. Dean had begun to let himself into the writer's house, and the writer would subtly smile upon finding him in his kitchen, sipping a beer from the fridge. Sam needed help sending his final application to college, so he put on his coat and went over to the brothers' house to assist him. He wished Sam success, but privately wanted him to stay - selfish and narcissistic, these people cannot belong to you.  
When the writer returned, he found Dean sitting at his desk, scrolling on his computer. A document. A story.  
'Dean...I...'  
'You wrote about me?' Dean said, standing. He'd read everything. The writer's stomach felt like a bottomless pit, swirling and engulfing him, swallowing him whole. Dean had read his heart on paper, things that couldn't, wouldn't be expressed through words.  
'I...I'm sorry,' he said, quietly.  
'For what?'  
'For Cas.' The writer stared at his socks. They were brown.  
And then Dean grinned. 'What are you talking about? Cas is my favorite character.'


End file.
